Juxtapozed With U by Super Furry Animals

"Juxtapozed with U" is the thirteenth single by Super Furry Animals. It was the first single to be taken from the Rings Around the World album and reached number 14 on the UK Singles Chart on its release in July 2001. The song was initially conceived as a duet but, after both Brian Harvey and Bobby Brown turned the band down, lead singer Gruff Rhys sang the entire track, using a vocoder on the verses to imitate another person. Musically "Juxtapozed with U" has echoes of Philadelphia soul and the "plastic soul" of David Bowie's album Young Americans and was inspired by the Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder track "Ebony and Ivory". Rhys has claimed that he sees "Juxtapozed with U" as "fairly subversive" because its polished pop style was in stark contrast to the "macho" guitar music the band felt was prevalent in 2001.Critical reaction to the track was generally positive with some reviewers describing it as the band's best single to date. A promotional music video was produced to accompany "Juxtapozed with U"'s release as a single. Directed by Dawn of the New Assembly/H5 the video features a computer generated women and man seen as thermal images. The couple drive around New York City and attend a party on the top floor of a skyscraper which is enveloped in flames towards the end of the track. An alternative video, directed by Fukme 99, was included on the DVD version of Rings Around the World. This video features three people walking through the streets of Hammersmith, dressed in cardboard costumes as a camcorder, clapperboard and microphone. The characters meet up with a fourth person wearing a large cardboard head and arms and then dance with several other people dressed in cardboard outside a group of warehouse. The DVD version of Rings Around the World also includes two remixes of "(Drawing) Rings Around the World" by Lesser and the Super Furry Animals themselves.